The first US troops deployed to assist the Iraqi army in combating a growing Sunni militant insurgency have arrived and begun work, the Pentagon has said.

As news arrives that the last of Syria’s of chemical weapons stocks have been removed from the country and talks between the West and Iran over that country’s long running nuclear program miraculously continue to progress, patient diplomacy seems to be getting more results than military action lately. That lesson should not be lost on pundits now fuming about the march of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) to the gates Baghdad. Interest in Iraq’s ongoing civil war had died down somewhat since the Obama administration withdrew American troops in 2011, yet the fighting dragged on and has now merged with the civil war in neighboring Syria. Western governments now find themselves in the paradoxical position of being hated by both sides of the present regional conflict in the Middle East. This is the final grand achievement of the armed democracy promotion that originally destabilized the region.

Instead of pointing fingers about who “lost Iraq” I think the great unraveling of the post-2003 Iraqi state will one day be seen as a real turning point. It has already forced Washington to think hard about where its militarized strategy in the Middle East since 9/11 has left its interests. The general perception is that they have taken a walloping, at great cost in prestige, blood and treasure. Nor is the US now the only state to have imperiled its regional standing with a reckless foreign policy. Stubborn Iranian backing for Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi’a supremacist regime as it excluded Iraqi (Arab) Sunnis from jobs and political power has come back to haunt Tehran; the virulently sectarian ISIL has since cut off the vital Iraqi land bridge that Iran uses to supply its Lebanese and Syrian allies/clients. Furthermore the only part of Iraq which is doing well is its semi-independent Kurdish region, which may now well leave the disintegrating Iraqi state. It sits alluringly just across the border from Iran’s own downtrodden Kurdish minority. With the US reluctance to jump back into the snake-pit of modern Iraq, the chance now lies open to use this temporary convergence of regional interests to build on the earlier start made with Tehran on the nuclear talks and actually end the tug-of-war that has enabled the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

A “Nixon-goes-to-China” reset with Tehran may sound unlikely in this loaded moment of crisis. But the vituperative rhetoric between “Red” China and America was every bit as bitter in the 1950s and 60s as the war of words is between Iran and the US today; Beijing was still backing insurgents against the US supported-regime in South Vietnam when Nixon visited in 1972. No one is suggesting that Washington and Tehran will ever become ‘best buddies’. China and America are not that today. But their prickly cooperation since Nixon sets a nice precedent for how Iran and the US could get over their relationship issues. In 2013, after the terrible Ghouta chemical attack in Syria, events could easily have led to a disastrous Western strike against the Syrian government. Sensibly, President Obama cut a deal with Syria’s international patron Russia instead; like Nixon, he understands that sometimes it’s better to talk to your enemies. The Ghouta attack actually created the diplomatic willpower by both sides to deal with Syria’s insecure chemical weapons stockpiles. The present Iraq disaster offers another such rare opportunity, this time for a temporary reset between Iran and America.

Any solution to the Iraq-Syria crisis needs to be comprehensive. That cannot occur with a still-bickering international community. Indeed part of the intractability of the Syrian-Iraqi conflict is that the collapse of central authority in Syria and Iraq has sucked in all their neighbors and patrons; the West, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf States, Lebanese groups, Iran, various Syrian factions and so on. Violent anarchy knows no formal boundaries. Since 2011, when the US left Iraq and the Syrian uprising began, ripples of conflict have spread to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. After so much bloodshed the transitions out of these civil wars will not be easy. But the internal strains can be considerably reduced if the international environment is right and the outside states push together for a peace settlement. Sunni states should remember it was in Syria that ISIL found the territory and resources to regroup after its first near-defeat in Iraq. Drawing the venom from the Syrian side of the struggle first will be a necessary step towards ending it in Iraq as well. In any case, Iraqis and Syrians have been fighting in each others’ countries for too long to separate the wars at this point. Focusing on reforming the Baghdad regime to include Sunnis, as pundits are arguing now, will help, but only addresses half of the problem.

The US and Iran should set aside their differences to work out a general agreement among the patrons of both sides of the Syrian part of the war. By backing a Syrian version of the Taif agreement, Obama would begin America’s ascent out of its Middle Eastern morass that his predecessor tipped it into. By working with Tehran and not Damascus, Washington would also avoid having to openly associate with the odious government of Bashar al-Assad. Properly enforced by neighboring states, a general agreement for a cessation of war-making material to both sides in Syria by their foreign backers, combined with an economic embargo to stop funds for military purposes getting out and smuggled arms getting in, would starve groups like ISIL that profit from Syria’s war economy. It would also end America’s bizarre policy of confronting ISIL in Iraq and de facto allying with it in Syria. Hurting the ability of both the rebels and the Syrian regime to continue the struggle would help push them towards serious peace negotiations which have so far stalled. Only then will efforts to help Iraq have their full effect.

Many commentators are too black-and-white in their thinking on the Middle East. As the recent interim breakthroughs over Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s chemical weapons have shown, by focusing on single issues international agreement towards diplomatic progress in the region can be made. Similarly deals can be made with your political rivals; in the Syrian conflict Russia’s credibility has been raised by the successful dismantling of government chemical weapons under international supervision, although the West and Putin remain at loggerheads over Ukraine’s future. Only together can America and Iran reduce the instability and misery sweeping Syria-Iraq. Although they remain strategic competitors, that doesn’t mean that controlling the explosive situation unleashed by their joint meddling in Syria-Iraq isn’t in both governments’ ultimate self-interest.

Neil Thompson is a freelance writer and editor for Atlantic Community. He has lived and travelled extensively through East Asia and the Middle East but is now based in London. He holds an MA in the International Relations of East Asia from Durham University and sometimes blogs about current events here.

A divided nation finally agrees on something overwhelmingly: the war in Iraq was simply not worth fighting.

Seventy-one percent of Americans now say that the war in Iraq “wasn’t worth it,” a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll shows, with skepticism about the lengthy war effort up substantially even in the last 18 months.

Just 22 percent now believe the 2003 war effort was worthwhile.

In a January 2013 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll asking the same question, 59 percent of Americans said the war wasn’t worth it, versus 35 percent who said the opposite.

Half of respondents also said that the United States does not have a responsibility to help the Iraqi government as the country descends into sectarian violence, while 43 percent said that America should intervene.

Americans are even more pessimistic about Iraq – where insurgent groups now threaten to overpower the government – than about the war in Afghanistan. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll earlier this month showed that 27 percent of respondents said the Afghan conflict was worth it, versus 65 percent who disagreed. Negativity about Iraq appears to rival that of the Vietnam War; three Gallup polls conducted from 1999-2000 found that about 7 in 10 Americans believe that 1970s war was a “mistake.”

Among diverse groups rarely in agreement on other big ticket items, skepticism about Iraq runs deep. Just 22 percent of men, 23 percent of young adults, and 21 percent of seniors say the war in Iraq was worth it.

Support for the war has dropped in almost all categories, but particularly among Republicans and conservatives. Now, Republicans are split about equally (46 percent worth it / 44 percent not worth it) on the issue.

When it comes to intervention in Iraq, “elite” groups - whites and those with higher incomes or an advanced education - were more likely to say that the U.S. has a responsibility to help stop the violence in Iraq.

The poll of 1,383 voters, conducted June 16 to June 22, has a margin of error of +/- 3.27.

163 comments:

And most of these aren't even Jews, according to Pew, they're Lutherans from places like Idaho who think that little piece of topless beachfront on the Eastern Med, founded by Marxist atheists from Eastern Europe after World War II, is the apple of G-d's eye because the Wholly Babble says so.

Teresita RedingerMy gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, parental status, and everything else you can think of aren't topics for this blog. I got my own blog for that. But I'm pretty sure you are a white supremacist from Hayden Lake, Idaho who wants to make Jews look bad by being a dick online.

AQQABA, West Bank — The news spread at dawn, and people in the village made their way to the olive tree where the bruised body of a young mother of six was hanging, her veil torn off. She had been killed in the name of honor.

“For two weeks, her children were incapable of sleeping, crying for their mother,” said Ahmad Abu Arra, a cousin of the victim. “We want justice.”

Here in this northern West Bank mountain town of breathtaking views, the relatives of Rasha Abu Arra, 32, who was killed in November after rumors spread that she had committed adultery.

Twenty-seven women are thought to have been killed last year in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by family members claiming reasons of “honor” — more than double the 13 cases documented in 2012. The age-old rationale can serve as a cover for domestic abuse, inheritance disputes, rape, incest or the desire to punish female independence, according to Maha Abu-Dayyeh, the general director of the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling, a Palestinian human rights group that tracks the killings.

Honor killing, once hidden behind a curtain of silence and shame, is beginning to seen.

“The entire society is incensed by the increase,” said Rabiha Diab, the minister of women’s affairs in the West Bank. “It is a very worrying situation, not just in the occupied Palestinian territories, but all over the Arab world.”

In recent years, other suspected victims have included a young Gazan mother of five who was bludgeoned to death by her father because he suspected she was using her cellphone to talk to a man. In September, a mentally disabled 21-year-old in the West Bank city of Hebron was allegedly killed by her mother after she was sexually assaulted. Another West Bank woman, who had divorced an abusive husband, allegedly was strangled by her father after being accused of “disgraceful” acts in a petition that news reports said was signed by a legislator from the Islamist militant movement Hamas, which rules Gaza.

Even the Prezbos are on board now. The times they are a changin' as the other Bob, the good Bob, sang.

DETROIT, MI – The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to allow pastors to perform same-sex “marriages” and to change its official definition of marriage to the union of “two people” by a margin of more than three-to-one at its General Assembly in Detroit Thursday.

As for subjects like "gay marriage" (or, any other kind of marriage,) and "prostitution - what the hell business does the government have in that? Kudos to Israel for its stance on those non-governmental issues.

Teresita RedingerWed Jun 25, 09:43:00 AM EDTA Bronze Age shepherd with nothing to do wrote a book about the origin and fate of the universe and not only do millions of people still believe it today, they kill for it.

Teresita RedingerWed Jun 25, 09:43:00 AM EDTA Bronze Age shepherd with nothing to do wrote a book about the origin and fate of the universe and not only do millions of people still believe it today, they kill for it.

Teresita RedingerWed Jun 25, 09:43:00 AM EDTA Bronze Age shepherd with nothing to do wrote a book about the origin and fate of the universe and not only do millions of people still believe it today, they kill for it.

According to one of T's earlier religio-historical analyses, the Tanakh was absolutely compiled in the Iron Age. According to her reckoning that would have had to be in the period 445-432 B.C.E. The Bronze Age ran form approximately 3150 B.C.E. - 1200 B.C.E. Obviously, she now puts the writing of the Jewish Bible thousands of years earlier. That is a daring leap of faith.

By making a shepherd, one of the lowest skilled occupations in the ancient world, a literary genius, Ms. T is also in agreement with the extraordinary level of literacy found among Hebrews at a very early date. That said, no one to my knowledge has ever claimed their origin at a time preceding the Hebrews. Despite its borrowings (?), the Torah and Tanakh are indisputably Jewish in origin.

The Israelites were actually pharaohs of Egypt. This idea has been championed by Ahmed Osman, amongst others, but I believe I have taken the theory well beyond the reaches of any other researcher.

Firstly, the details of the Hyksos exodus out of Egypt are remarkably similar to the accounts of the Exodus from the Book of Genesis.

Secondly, the reports and imagery from the court at Amarna bear distinct similarities to the accounts of Adam and Eve. Initially, I argued that the naked Adam and Eve were the naked love-birds, Akhenaton and Nefertiti. However, it later transpired that Eve's Hebrew name of Khavah was based upon the almost identical word Khiyah - with both meaning 'life'. In this case, it is likely that Adam and Khiyah (Eve) were actually Akhenaton and Kiya, his second wife.

Thirdly, there is the 'lost' court of Kings David and Solomon - why cannot these famous kings be found in Israel? The reason, I suspect, is that their main capital city actually lay in the Nile Delta at Tanis (Thus the biblical Zion is actually the biblical Zoan, which is another name for Tanis). What we are looking for, therefore, is a monarch who was identified with a Star and a City (as was David). What we find is that a pharaoh of exactly the same era, Psusennes II, was identified in exactly this same manner - as his cartouche contains the Star and City glyphs. A likely nickname for this pharaoh might well be Duat, which is similar to the Hebrew name Duad for David. Furthermore, this pharaoh's daughter was called Maakhare MuTamhat, while David's daughter was called Maakhah Tamar. His army commander was called Tchoeb while David's was called Joab. And his architect was called Herum Atif, while David's was called Hiram Abif (the masonic hero).

All in all, the evidence constantly points towards the Old Testament being a reliable and highly detailed account of the life and times of the royal court of the Lower Egyptian pharaonic line. The Torah is simply the 'Day Book' from the Egyptian royal court.

We have grown so used to the orthodox ecclesiastical creed that we have forgotten that the Biblical Abraham was in fact a very powerful man. Josephus, the first century Jewish historian says of Abraham:

Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt at the time, descended on this land with an immense army and seized Sarah the Princess, mother of our nation. And what did our forefather Abraham do? Did he avenge the insult by force of arms? Yet he had three hundred and eighteen officers under him, with unlimited manpower at his disposal!

Three hundred and eighteen officers, not men, under his command, it was obviously quite a sizable army that Abraham had at his disposal - possibly running into the tens of thousands. In this case, the image I have portrayed above is not quite so absurd, at the most it is just an embellishment on what the texts say, for they do not explain from what lands and over what peoples Abraham was such a leader. Yet how many options do we really have, how many nations in this era would have such a powerful army?

The patriarchs in the Bible are known as being shepherds, as I have just indicated, in fact the Bible is quite specific about this point. Joseph's family are asked by pharaoh:

What is your occupation? And they said ... Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers.

This point is not just interesting, it is fundamental to understanding what the Bible is trying to tell us. For it just so happens that a whole dynasty of pharaohs were known as shepherds! These were the pharaohs who, in the historical record, had 'invaded' northern Egypt during the 14th to 16th dynasties and these peoples were known as the Hyksos, a term which translates as 'Shepherd King'. Clearly we have a very obvious and very strong link here - in fact it is amazing that so little has been said about this coincidence. There is a great deal of synergy here, the Bible mentions a very special family line of Shepherds of which it says the Òkings will come out of youÓ and likewise the historical record tells us that some of the pharaohs of northern Egypt were called Shepherd Kings. It was a similarity that was just crying out to be investigated and the results of this scrutiny were quite astounding.

To start this process is has to be assumed that the Bible contains a real historical record, yet many people may look at the Bible as something completely alien to the real world. We have the real history provided for us by the archaeologists and then there is the theological history of the Bible, Koran and Torah - yet it seems at times that the two records are mutually exclusive. Nothing in the theological record really ties in with the historical one, it is almost as if the biblical story occurred on another planet! Nothing could be further from the truth, in reality the Bible and the historical record continuously merge into one - if one knows how to interpret what is being said.

It gets a tedious, cutting and pasting into this format, anyone with curioity can read more @http://www.edfu-books.com/abraham.html

Ralph, you are totally on the wrong track there. Shepherds were ritually anathema to the people of the major cities along the Nile, so Pharaoh gave the Immigrants (Hebrews) leave to range over all the province of Rameses instead, also called the region of Goshen, along the easternmost fork of the Nile delta.

Online retailers have begun selling ISIS-themed T-shirts and hoodies. If you’d like a unique cover-up for the beach this summer and don’t mind a lot of black, you can purchase a sweatshirt with the group’s full name—Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—written in bleak white lettering. Another design features the group’s acronym, ISIS, surrounded by automatic weapons and a map of the world, in an apparent reference to the group’s global ambition.

ISIS may think their hoodies are fashion statements, but this Algerian babe, Amina Kaddur, is more my speed. Seriously.

Iran? That's a fools' errand. Iran went tits up on Carter's watch, and on Reagan's watch (actually on my watch) we sank half their fleet to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for business. Almost lost a frigate in the process, French Exocet missiles, one being a dud. I did lose an acquaintance on that ship. We're not going to be fuck buddies with Iran until there's a people power revolution throws out the mullahs.

The FCV will be able to cruise for 700kms and be refuelled in three minutes, the only emission is water vapour from the exhaust.

Toyota revealed a brand new design for a hydrogen fuel cell car that will be released in Japan before April 2015 and preparations are underway for launches in the U.S. and European markets in the summer of 2015.

The FCV will be on sale in Japan through dealerships for 7 million yen or a little over €50K Euro excluding delivery charges and local tax. and preparations are underway for launches in the U.S. and European markets in the summer of 2015.advertisement

Hydrogen is a particularly promising alternative fuel since it can be produced using a wide variety of primary energy sources, including solar and wind power. When compressed, it has a higher energy density than batteries and is easier to store and transport. In addition to its potential as a fuel for home and automotive use, hydrogen could be used in a wide range of applications, including large-scale power generation.

Nice thing about water vapor is that when it condenses in the upper troposphere it turns white, and reflects sunlight before those green photons can bounce around down here and turn into twenty infrared ones (which, by the way, is the source of all your calories and the process that puts water behind a dam). So Mother Earth sweats to cool Herself.

Exactly. Those T72s are great, if that's all you've got.But a Hellfire is better

Killer Drones versus Battle TanksJune 16, 2009

Currently the US military is using its supreme anti-tank missile, the Hellfire, fired from unmanned drones like the Predator against Middle East insurgents and terrorists. I am curious if on some future air/land battlefield if the Hellfire and UAV combo will be used in the missile’s original role against the main battle tanks of better armed aggressor nations.

Syria’s ‘declared’ arsenal of chemical weapons is almost gone—but what was left undeclared? And what about its biological weapons? Those have not been acknowledged or inspected at all.Concerns are growing among Western intelligence services that Syria still has a significant and undeclared arsenal of chemical weapons, including crude chlorine-filled bombs, secret stockpiles of sophisticated nerve gasses or their components—and the scientific know-how to rebuild a larger-scale, higher-grade chemical weapons effort once the Bashar al-Assad regime has escaped the international spotlight.

“A ghost of CW [chemical weapons] program in a place riven with conflict—that’s a real concern,” one American intelligence official tells The Daily Beast.

But it’s not the only worry. Within the U.S. intelligence community, there’s also lingering unease about the Assad regime’s biological weapons program that has never been the focus of international inspections and that American officials confess they just don’t have the resources to track down.

This year a poll showed 74% of Americans believed the US was still in recession. Were they right? Perhaps not technically...

But, first quarter GDP droped by 2.9%. Consumer and business spending down. Companies are sitting on $1.4 trillion rather than lending or investing it. Companies are sitting on the money because they can make more or lose less by doing so.

A positive (though likely not long lasting) piece of good news. A federal judge has ruled that it is unconstitutional for Homeland Security to refuse to tell people why they have been put on a no-fly list. Perhaps that 6 year old kid that was on the list will find out why now.

Washington — In a strong defense of digital age privacy, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police may not generally search the cellphones of people they arrest without first getting search warrants.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140625/POLITICS03/306250070#ixzz35fpNctJZ

Here’s a thought experiment. Assume during the George W. Bush administration the IRS had targeted MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, the Center for American Progress, and a slew of other liberal groups. Assume, too, that no conservative groups were the subject of harassment and intimidation. And just for the fun of it, assume that press secretary Ari Fleischer had misled the press and the public by saying the scandal was confined to two rogue IRS agents in Cincinnati and that President Bush had declared that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” that had occurred.

Let’s go a step further. Assume that the IRS Commissioner, in testifying before Congress, admitted that the emails of the person at the heart of the abuse of power scandal were gone, that the backup tapes have been erased and that her hard drive was destroyed. For good measure, assume that the person who was intimately involved in targeting liberal groups took the Fifth Amendment.

Given all this, boys and girls, do you think the elite media–the New York Times, Washington Post, The News Hour, and the news networks for ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN–would pay much attention to it?

Answer: They wouldn’t just cover the story; they would fixate on it. It would be a crazed obsession. Journalists up and down the Acela Corridor would be experiencing dangerously rapid pulse rates. The gleam in their eye and the spring in their step would be impossible to miss. You couldn’t escape the coverage even if you wanted to. The story would sear itself into your imagination.

After more than a year of scrutiny, three congressional committees continue to flail away at the Internal Revenue Service's alleged targeting of conservative nonprofit groups without producing any definitive answers to the questions they've raised. This page worried at the outset that the investigations would become too politicized to get to the bottom of the scandal. The result, however, has been even worse: Not only have two House probes disintegrated into partisan sniping, but the IRS further damaged its own credibility by belatedly disclosing the disappearance of two years' worth of emails belonging to a key agency figure who has refused to talk to Congress. It's past time to turn over the inquiry to an independent investigator who can dig up the truth and, if possible crimes are revealed, refer matters to federal prosecutors.

And why is there no investigation of who the "Media" is?Who owns the investigative arm of 'The People', the "Fifth Estate"?These people are not phantoms, not ciphers, but flesh and blood people with an Agenda. That they all work in concert, part of their design, not an aberration.

In anticipation of those who will say American just don't care about the VA or IRS scandals.

Amid the intense national focus on both the IRS and AP cases, public opinion is turning against Attorney General Eric Holder. The Quinnipiac poll found 76 percent of voters would prefer a special prosecutor to take over for Holder on the IRS investigation, while Holder himself received a job approval rating of a rather low 23 to 39 percent.

"There is overwhelming bipartisan support for a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Voters apparently don't like the idea of Attorney General Eric Holder investigating the matter himself, perhaps because they don't exactly think highly of him."

When Paul Ryan called Mr. Koskinen a liar, it was one of the first times I fully agreed with the gentleman from Wisconsin.

A new poll shows about 80% of Americans think President Barack Obama is “personally” responsible for at least some of the issues with the medical care provided to former soldiers by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll, released Tuesday, found 38% of respondents viewed Obama responsible for a “good” or “great” amount of the VA’s woes; another 41% said Obama was responsible for “just some” of the controversy. That makes for 79% of voters who lay at least some of the blame for the scandal with the president.

The economy shrunk in the first quarter of 2014 and it might be all health care's fault. Believe it or not, that's a good thing.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the overall GDP shrank by 2.9 percent. This has led some commentators to call it the "worst quarter" in five years.

HEALTH SPENDING WENT DOWN WHILE THE NUMBER OF AMERICANS WITH INSURANCE WENT UP.

But that fall was largely driven by dip in health care spending. What's good for health policy tends to look bad for the health care sector. (And vice versa.)

The BEA initially estimated that health care spending climbed 9.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014 — a potentially worrisome increase. The agency released their second revision of that number today: now they believe that health care spending has fallen by 1.4 percent.

That means health care spending went down while the number of Americans with insurance may have gone up.

"Overall, the health care news is phenomenally good." said Peter Orszag, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget. "The supposed acceleration in health spending has been shown to be false."

This revision is precisely what we would expect, based on the Census's Quarterly Services Survey released on June 11. This survey — which collects industry information like hospital revenue, inpatient days and discharges — provided the data that the BEA used to revise its numbers.

"Overall, the news is phenomenally good."

As Orszag explained, BEA's initial estimates were mostly a guess — an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless. "It was this puzzle: we had big increase in the early GDP numbers, but no evidence from other sources to match. That generated media hoopla, even though the number was basically made up."

Now that the data are in, they show that health spending actually declined in the first three months of 2014 relative to the end of 2013. That means the slowdown in health spending is continuing, though it's hard to pin down exactly what's driving it. Economists agree that the recession was causing part of the slowdown, but that effect should be winding down. Hospitals and other providers appear to be cutting waste and making the health care system more efficient. Obamacare is probably playing some role, but it's challenging to say how big that role is.

As you know, the only thing that counts in a fractional reserve banking system is the velocity of money. If people have more money in their hand because they're not spending so much on health care that is Very Bad Indeed, because they might think of that as a nest egg rather than use it to help prop up the S&P. It's bad enough that all those corporations are sitting on cash and threatening to pauperize the hedge fund managers.

It costs one hell of a lot less to limp down to the Doctor's office (which you can do, now that you have insurance,) have the Nurse Practitioner look at the bruised up ankle, wrap it, tell you to stay off of it, and write you a prescription for a couple of vicodin,

T, you probably keep up on this stuff. Did internet explorer ever get that bug fixed where hackers went in with a bug that could pull passwords from users?

Since then I have been using Mozilla and other systems but I accidentally got into Explorer a while ago and I just got a message from Google that my password had been changed. I had to go in and reset it.

They did fix it, it was so serious that Microsoft pushed out an update even for XP platforms three weeks after they said they were pulling the plug on XP. It doesn't matter to me, the only thing I use IE for is to go get Google Chrome right after installing Windows on something. And there's even a hack that makes Microsoft think you're using an embedded version of Windows (like an ATM) and you get updates until 2016.

Right you are. It is about trying to blow smoke up my ass, you pagan moron.

The Torah (Five Books of Moses) is in fact a scroll assembled from lengths of fine vellum, containing 304,805 unbroken letters, all consonants. There are no vowels, vowel indicators, punctuation, sentences, paragraphs or chapters. It does have one truly remarkable quality not found in any other work: All groups of letters addressing a particular thesis or thought begin with "vav". Since you are an expert, I needn't explain the "vav" or its peculiar use in the Torah.

People capable of such literary and technical prowess do not tend livestock, then or now. They are Ph.D.’s, who do not spend their evenings tending a fire fueled by dried sheep shit, composing highly sophisticated tomes in a dimly lighted campsite.

allen tells us that shepherds are the lowest of the low, but Mr Ellis informs us that allen is wrong. That for any variety of reasons allen has made an argument no based on the facts about ancient cultures and societiesThat, in fact, shepherds held the highest societal position in ancient Egypt.

You have it quite reversed, Jack. Shepherds were like the Mexican lawn mower dudes of Egypt. The highest social position was the kings and queens, who were revered as gods on Earth. Doctors were up there too.

Mr. Ellis did nothing of the sort. I wonder how he would feel about your use of his work and good name without permission, dipshit?http://www.amazon.com/Ralph-Ellis/e/B0034PJHIEhttp://freespace.virgin.net/kena.edfu/

Hi my name is Ms T aka the &quot;Teresita&quot; I love puppies, kittens, my husband, my job (I am a military genius that has saved the world 4 times) and of course I love pussy.Wed Jun 25, 06:35:00 PM EDT

Please excuse Ms T. She is a know it all of the 1st order. She believes that she is a witch or wiccan, whichever offends more.

Nine times out of ten when Christians go after atheists, they use a variation of the Cosmological Argument, the second of the Five Ways put forward by Thomas Aquinas to demonstrate the existence of God, although their version of the “proof” is rarely of the same intellectual rigor. They might say, for example, “If there’s no God, where did all this come from?” A more precise formula might be given like this:

1. The existence of every contingent being has an explanation.2. A chain of explanations that extends back to infinity has no originating explanation.3. Therefore, we postulate that a necessary being must exist.

It is not my intention in this post to critique the logic of this argument because that has already been done to death time and again. My focus is on the quality of the argument as an alternative to the current understanding of cosmology, because creationists push an agenda to teach this in our public schools qua science.

The argument is put forth as metaphysical justification for the act of creation ex nihilo, something from nothing, and yet the evidence from scripture demonstrates that only light was created in this way, not water. Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” but this is clearly a sort of chapter heading, a summary of what is about to happen over the next few days, because the heaven, the firmament, is not created until the second day.

Genesis 1:2 says, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” It doesn’t say that God created the water, for all we know the water is “co-eternal” with God!

Genesis 1:3 says, And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Only at this point has God brought something into existence with a mere word. Both water and God have no explanation for their existence given in scripture. And yet Christians, with this bramble bush at the foot of their own divine text, are perfectly willing to attack atheists for holding that the universe itself has no explanation for its existence.

Mr. Ellis lives in the Atlanta area. He did not post the comments contained herein. Neither did he give permission for his work to be quoted at length without attribution.

Are you going to take them down as a man of integrity would do or are you going to behave like a lying Christian pagan and get the Jew whatever depravity is required? I think both Mr. Ellis and I will be keenly interested in your response to abuse.

But if the biblical family were pharaohs of Egypt, should we not see them in the historical record? Indeed so, but first of all the precise era to study needs to be decided and the clue to this comes from the Bible. The patriarchs in the Bible are known as being shepherds, as I have just indicated, in fact the Bible is quite specific about this point. Joseph's family are asked by pharaoh:

What is your occupation? And they said ... Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers.

This point is not just interesting, it is fundamental to understanding what the Bible is trying to tell us. For it just so happens that a whole dynasty of pharaohs were known as shepherds! These were the pharaohs who, in the historical record, had 'invaded' northern Egypt during the 14th to 16th dynasties and these peoples were known as the Hyksos, a term which translates as 'Shepherd King'. Clearly we have a very obvious and very strong link here - in fact it is amazing that so little has been said about this coincidence. There is a great deal of synergy here, the Bible mentions a very special family line of Shepherds of which it says the Òkings will come out of youÓ and likewise the historical record tells us that some of the pharaohs of northern Egypt were called Shepherd Kings. It was . . . .

And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

I am quite sure that there's a scroll somewhere with umpteen hundred thousand characters, no vowels, which can only be understood by Allen and WiO using their umim and thummim magic decoder rings they got from sending in their Ovaltine proof of purchases, but they're not my target audience. Christians have appropriated these texts and made them their own. I'm going after them, because they are the ones trying to make this stuff accepted as public school curricula and put the country on the path to becoming Somalia West.

Teresita RedingerWed Jun 25, 09:43:00 AM EDTA Bronze Age shepherd with nothing to do wrote a book about the origin and fate of the universe and not only do millions of people still believe it today, they kill for it.

According to one of T's earlier religio-historical analyses, the Tanakh was absolutely compiled in the Iron Age. According to her reckoning that would have had to be in the period 445-432 B.C.E. The Bronze Age ran form approximately 3150 B.C.E. - 1200 B.C.E. Obviously, she now puts the writing of the Jewish Bible thousands of years earlier. That is a daring leap of faith.

By making a shepherd, one of the lowest skilled occupations in the ancient world, a literary genius, Ms. T is also in agreement with the extraordinary level of literacy found among Hebrews at a very early date. That said, no one to my knowledge has ever claimed their origin at a time preceding the Hebrews. Despite its borrowings (?), the Torah and Tanakh are indisputably Jewish in origin.

You used another man's name and work without permission for the purpose of deception. If this were my site, I would apologize to Mr. West and boot your sorry ass off the airwaves for a week.

Not knowing Mr. West, I cannot begin to guess his reaction to your misconduct. I suspect he could cause a world of trouble. Has your anti-Judaism (I hate Das Allen) rendered you incapable of respect for the sanctity of another man's accomplishments?

And yet Christians, with this bramble bush at the foot of their own divine text, are perfectly willing to attack atheists for holding that the universe itself has no explanation for its existence.

T, when it gets to your key premise, you lack precision.

You speak of Christians as if they are all uniform in their belief that the Bible represents literal facts and history. While some sects or denominations might, I would venture to guess most accept it for what it is poetry meant to unite a people around a certain set of beliefs.

IMO, your definition of atheist is also flawed. An atheist is a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. I've never seen any definition of atheist that leaves out the supreme being part.

Not sure what to call the person you describe as "...holding that the universe itself has no explanation for its existence". I suppose the definition of 'skeptic' would more closely fit what you describe.

eresita RedingerWed Jun 25, 06:53:00 PM EDTGive one quote where Abraham is called a "shepherd." I am in no hurry, as usual. With interest, I will check back later. :-)

Genesis 47:3 And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers.

Fathers being Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Terah, etc....

ReplyReplies

allenWed Jun 25, 07:43:00 PM EDTAnd it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

You left out the "ruse", Sweetpea. Why?

ruse

An action intended to deceive someone; a trick:___Oxford

You are scum.

Joseph advised his clan to lie to Pharaoh about being herdsmen and shepherds for several reasons. Politically, they could hardly admit to being a warlike clan which had spent years making alliances to gain control of tracts of rich land in Canaan – land that Pharaoh believed fell within his sphere of influence. Culturally, Joseph was creating a ghetto to segregate his clansmen from Egyptian culture and its prying eyes and bad influences.

Again, the Hebrews lied to Pharaoh. They were not primarily herdsmen and shepherds. They were conquerers fallen on bad times.

But suitably translated, with the sheep becoming the constellation of Aries (or their followers) and the cattle as Taurus (and their followers), everything fitted into place.

As has been alluded to in previous books, the constellations move slowly with the millennia and each era has a ruling constellation, the current one being Pisces. But back in the 13th 14th dynasty, they were on the cusp of a change in the constellations, between Taurus and Aries. The era of Taurus lasted until about 1800 BC, when Aries came into ascendance, this date is not only very close to both the era of the first Hyksos pharaohs and the arrival of Abraham in the Bible, but I would also suggest that this change in the constellations caused a social rift between the Apis Bull worshippers in Thebes (the Taureans) and the Hyksos Shepherd pharaohs in the north (the Arians). The country was divided, there was civil war - just as the historical records indicate.

Evidence

The Bible has direct evidence that shows this to be true and in addition the following quote seems to be a verbatim conversation that has been preserved for some 3,500 years. The scene is set by the 3rd century BC Egyptian historian Manetho, who indicates (as does the Bible) that there were actually two exoduses from Egypt - one being a major migration and the other a much smaller exodus of priests. After the first exodus, the patriarch Joseph (he with the coat of many colours, ie a priests stole) goes back to Egypt and rises to become the most powerful man in Egypt, save from the pharaoh himself. Joseph asks his family to join him in Egypt, but he has a warning for them.

(Paraphrased) You are shepherds as you know, and your duty is to feed the cattle... And it shall come to pass that pharaoh will call you, and shall say what is your occupation. You must say in return that your trade has been cattle from our youth even until now, both we and also our fathers. Otherwise you will not be allowed to stay in the land of Egypt, for we shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians. Genesis 46:32

What could Joseph possibly mean by this statement? It is not as if the Egyptians had any prohibitions on the eating of sheep meat, so why was the pharaoh so interested in the occupation of the brothers and why was the lowly but honourable profession of shepherd so despised? The solution is simple, a couple of words have been altered by the scribes to give the conversation an agricultural bias, but in truth they were discussing the most important topic in Egypt - religion. Replacing the words with their original astrological counterparts, the full import of the statement becomes dramatically clear.

(Paraphrased) You are Hyksos/Arians as you know, and your duty is to convert the followers of Taurus ... And it shall come to pass that pharaoh will call you, and shall say what is your religion. You must say in return that your religion has been Taurean from our youth even until now, both we and also our fathers. Otherwise you will not be allowed to stay in the land of Egypt, for we Hyksos/Arians are an abomination to the Egyptians.

Suddenly it becomes dramatically obvious why the Egyptians thought that shepherds were an abomination. This was not a reference to a profession, but to a religion and an entire nation - the Hyksos. Egypt had just been through a bitter and bloody civil war with these peoples, a war between southern and northern Egypt which resulted in the Exodus of the Hyksos peoples and the destruction of much of the northern delta lands. Of course the 'shepherds' were an abomination to the (southern) Egyptians - they were the Hyksos Shepherds!

Suddenly the Bible makes sense, there is valid historical data to be found if we know what to look for. Forget the picture postcard images of simple nomadic farmers - enter the tortuous dynastic alliances and political machinations of the most powerful people in the world in that era - the pharaohs of Egypt. Joseph was, by the admission of the Bible, the vizier to the pharaoh, the

The gentleman is a prolific writer (check the links) deserving a read. Although I can no longer remember the name, about 20 years ago a Jewish archaeologist did a two part TV documentary covering some of the same ground. It was fascinating and well sourced. The relationship between Egypt and Israel is so ancient that it gets lost in the mist of time. Things are not always what they seem. And then there are agendas, killers of objectivity and truth.

Allen:And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

And it shall come to pass, when WiO shall call you and say, what is your story, that ye shall say, "Thy servant is a Catholic laywoman, and a veteran of the United States Navy," for womenfolk and gentiles are abominations to WiO and he thinks veterans are assholes.

hapters 18 and 20 of Leviticus, which form part of the Holiness code and list prohibited forms of intercourse, contain the following verses:

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them."

The two verses have historically been interpreted by Jews and Christians as clear blanket prohibitions against homosexual acts. More recent interpretations focus on its context as part of the Holiness Code, a code of purity meant to distinguish the behavior of Israelites from the Canaanites.

But this is not the Law in the Jewish State of Israel.

So is that proof that Israel is not Jewish or that Israel has abandoned the Law?

Spengler's Universal Law #9: A country isn't beaten until it sells its women, but it's damned when its women sell themselves.

I served for this nation and not for Israel like we did in Gulf One and Two. The only thing Israel did for us was sell us boxes of oranges for breakfast in D-Gar and I had to check for spit on them when they arrived by way of Oman.

I've been reading about the Haplogroup, E1b1b, which seems to be the "agriculture gene." Came out of The Horn of Africa (Ethiopia and Somalia.) It's also suspected that the earliest agriculture might not have been in the Fertile Crescent, but in Northeast Africa - what is now Sahara Desert, but, 7,000 years ago, was wet and fertile.

In any event, it's next stop seems to be Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Egypt. Then up to Greece, and the Balkans, and then into Europe proper.

Anyway, it seems that it was the prevalent gene in Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia during the period we're discussing.

Today, I read an extremely interesting report on alleles. It seems that groups of alleles do not just determine one characteristic but can affect (that OK Old Doug :-)) numerous characteristics. For instance, eye color, height, susceptibility to certain diseases (say the new form of malaria - appeared about 4,000 years ago), IQ, ear wax (more important than you might think) and many, many more traits are all, simultaneously, determined. When you consider that millions-billions of these groupings are all at work at once picking one sweet spot is difficult, but it is happening, and more and more frequently.

The old racist saw that nurture, not nature, is the cause of human behavior is now as dead as a door nail. It is apparent that culture is a reflection of genetics. How important is this? Astronomically! For instance, think of the changes that are coming to the legal system. How does one punish "criminal" behavior over which the culprit has no more control than his/her eye color? The question then becomes, will we incarcerate for life those born with anti-social pathologies? Furthermore, what do we do if it is discovered that the political class is also the psychopathic class, as Twain jokingly implied?

"The Source" is excellent and exhaustively researched. I have read it several times. Like "Shogun", it calls me back.

"Dysfunctional" is actually a Hebrew word (joke). Put two Jews together and you will get three opinions.

Orthodox Jews consider Abraham a saint. He is the subject of a vast amount of writing that could best be called fantasy. “Infantile” as a modifier is not going too far.

Ishmael was Abraham's first born son. There is nothing in Torah to indicate that he was unloved by his father – quite the contrary. Indeed, Abraham argued that Ishmael was his rightful heir. But then, suddenly, without a recorded shred of regret, Abraham abandoned Hagar and Ishmael near Beersheba in what can only be called murder by nature. Leaving them with nothing more than a single flask of water, he had to know that death was a certainty. Well, they did not die. The last we hear of Ishmael in life is his participation with Isaac in the burial of Abraham. Think about that. According to Jewish Sages, because of Ishmael’s act of filial piety blessings would forever enure to his descendants. Loosely, Ishmael means “G-d listens (or hears)”

Yes, dysfunctional is the word. Most peculiar, indeed, is the refusal of scribes to remove these deep character flaws from the text's "heroes". And Abraham is one of a legion. Our great sin, for which we were burned at the stake by the thousands over the centuries, was making the case for redemption by human choice. Essentially, a man or woman could be saved from eternal loss by begging forgiveness and demonstrating salvation by living a different life at one with G-d's law. And what was the essence of this divine law? Micah wrote, "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." It is hard to believe that uttering such doctrine was cause for torture and death. But it was more than enough.

To blithely say, “Well, that was then and this is now; get over it” is one of the stupidest statements ever uttered from an empty mind. Anne Frank died in April 1945. She was one of the last of 6,000,000 to have been murdered because of her ethnicity. By a fluke of nature, she drew the wrong genetic card and had to die. Had she not perished, Anne might be living as a grandmother, today. And what would Grandmother Anne have seen, today? In London, yesterday, several hundred Jews peacefully attending a music festival were attacked by a mob of immigrant, Polish neo-Nazi’s. Same old story, different decade.

You claimed to be Mr. West. An intelligent fellow would have said something to the effect: Mr. West says etc. etc. etc. Instead, you posed as Mr. West, purposefully misleading others into believing that a prolific writer of ancient history was commenting at the EB. That makes you an identity thief and liar. No one will accuse you of hubris; you have no pride or self-confidence, much less excessive. Like most sociopaths, you equate ruthlessness and intelligence. Mr. West may never learn of your abuse of his good name and reputation and you will escape scot-free, ready to screw again. But, one day your luck will fail and someone will have your balls on the wall. The display plague will have to be large to compensate for the tiny exhibit. I look forward to your comeuppance. Additionally, some folks are very litigious and could cause permanent harm to the EB.

Note: Your degeneracy has been handled in a manner that did not involve a discussion about Israel, Judaism, Jews, Zionists, anti-Semitism, fascism, or …

You have wronged Mr. West and no matter how much nonsense you throw on the wall in hopes of distraction by turning this into an Israel slugfest, you will fail.

The verses are Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. First, Thou shalt not lie with a man, as with a woman: it is abomination. Second, If a man lie with a man, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

There is, however, a big problem with quoting Leviticus. The problem is that Christians are no longer under the Law.

So are we to assume by this that Israel is really a Christian Nation?That it has rejected Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 and embraced the Apostle Paul who wrote it in Galatians:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us. (Galatians 3:13)

It was Jesus’ death on the cross that rescued us from the curse of the Law. If we insist on following the Law and imposing the Law on others, we negate the cross of Christ, and repudiate Christ’s death on the cross.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

Tel Aviv devotes about $100,000 — more than a third of its international marketing budget — to drawing gay tourists. Though no exact figures exist, officials estimate that tens of thousands of gay tourists from abroad arrive annually.

"We are trying to create a model for openness, pluralism, tolerance," Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai told The Associated Press. "Live and let live — this is the city of Tel Aviv."

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.